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The original statement was "All christian churches consider them selves part of the holy catholic church" - it didn't simply say "catholic", it said "holy catholic church." That's not a matter of semantic ambiguity. This whole thing could have been avoided easily; a simple "I meant to say most, not all christian churches" would have prevented 90% of posts in this thread To see where I'm coming from, refer to dinowuff's post for an excellent example.

The term originally used was catholic and no mention was made of Roman Catholic.

"All christian churches consider them selves part of the holy catholic church"

Could be interpreted as "All Christian Churches I know of" if one were not to take a formal view of the language. I occasionally worship at a C of E church, which is not RC and we use the phrase one holy and catholic church in the ceremony. All churches that I have ever worshipped at use that phrase - Including C of E, Roman Catholic, Baptist and non-denominational.

Most people, when stating opinions using common language often use the word "All" to mean "All that I know of"

I think semantic ambiguity is rife in this thread, and in reality in all uses of common language. That is why most legal documents define a number of terms and words formally to remove the ambiguity.

Perhaps you can give me the link to the thread of dinowuff that you refer to please. I've no idea what you are talking about otherwise.

The original statement, again, was that "All christian churches consider THEMSELVES part of the holy catholic church" (emphasis added to make it clear where the problems lie with that statement). I think it's extremely obvious that not ALL christian churches consider themselves to be part of the holy catholic church. While the reverse may be true (the catholic church, or the "christian church" for that matter - whatever that may be - can consider all christian churches to be catholic as much as it pleases; don't reverse that logic, though, to assume that those christian churches consider themselves to be part of the catholic church).

If I ask the average Texan here, for example, if they are a member of a christian church, 90% will say "yes, absolutely!" Ask them, though, if they consider themselves - or their church - as being part of the catholic church, and whips will start a-cracking, Hemi's a-roaring, and Colts a-blazing...Quid erat demonstrandum.

The original statement, again, was that "All christian churches consider THEMSELVES part of the holy catholic church" (emphasis added to make it clear where the problems lie with that statement). I think it's extremely obvious that not ALL christian churches consider themselves to be part of the holy catholic church. While the reverse may be true (the catholic church, or the "christian church" for that matter - whatever that may be - can consider all christian churches to be catholic as much as it pleases; don't reverse that logic, though, to assume that those christian churches consider themselves to be part of the catholic church).

If I ask the average Texan here, for example, if they are a member of a christian church, 90% will say "yes, absolutely!" Ask them, though, if they consider themselves - or their church - as being part of the catholic church, and whips will start a-cracking, Hemi's a-roaring, and Colts a-blazing...Quid erat demonstrandum.

Neg. are you deliberately ignoring my points about the use of common vs formal language, or do you simply not understand them?

I am in no way refuting your logic. I am explaining that in common language the word All and All .. that I know of are often interchangeable. (Emphasis added to make it clear the point I am failing to get across.)

On that basis the phrase "All Christian churches that I know of consider themselves part of the holy catholic church" is true.

This interpretation defines a subset of all Christian churches which makes the statement logically true.

It is the of the use of the word All, it's definition, and the confusion between Roman Catholic and holy catholic that I make my original point:

"Logic is only the beginning of wisdom"

I have no idea what goes on in Texas but to be pedantic the phrase above states that: All christian churches consider THEMSELVES

This makes no mention of surveys of their worshippers, in Texas or otherwise. We could now debate as to which set of people can be classed as a church and which set are its worshippers. And if one is true subset of the other, the same set or intersecting sets, but I really haven't got the energy for that debate. But all this re-emphasises the the point:

"Logic is only the beginning of wisdom"

And just for the sake of being truly pedantic, is this the Latin you meant?

Either modification of the original statement will make me shut up: either change the original ("All christian churches consider themselves part of the holy catholic church") to "Most christian churches consider themselves part of the holy catholic church", or to "All christian churches that I know of consider themselves part of the catholic church."

Can we at least agree on that? If not, what will happen next time someone on these boards states that "All versions of the Windows operating system are shells around DOS"? Will you let that one go, too? Because, after all, "All" and "All that I know of" (and even "Some", I guess) are interchangeable, right?

And just for the sake of being truly pedantic, is this the Latin you meant?

"quod erat demonstrandum"

Absolutely. It's been 15 years. That, or my "i" and "o" keys are right next to each other

How about "All Christian churches (if they are truly Christian
according to rcgreen's definition of Christian) must consider
themselves part of the holy catholic church (or else they are not
really Christian at all (no matter how much they may claim to be.)

How about "All Christian churches (if they are truly Christian
according to rcgreen's definition of Christian) must consider
themselves part of the holy catholic church (or else they are not
really Christian at all (no matter how much they may claim to be.)

I'd got wound up because I thought you'd been a bit hard with the Undies and to be honest, if it had been me replying I would have said something along the lines of "I understand your point" rather than giving a "Lesson in Logic"

Giving someone an univited "Lesson" did make you come across as arrogant, or at least it seemed to from my point of view.

Especially as I feelt it did boil down to a point in semantics. I guess I tried to explain that in my original post (obviously not as well as I could have) and things got a little out of hand from there. I suppose I got riled by the disagreement.